TRUCE

ADELINE'S POV

It takes me a while to notice where we are but when the high of the adrenaline rush is down, I dare to look around the room we sought refuge in and a huge and massive painting of Veronica on the wall attacks my retinas.

"Guys…" I whisper and the other two girls follow my line of vision.

"We have to get out of here." Silver immediately says.

"No way. We're probably in the safest rom in this place and you want us to leave?" Della protests.

"Do you realize where we are? This is Veronica's room if that huge picture on the wall isn't clear enough." She says baring her teeth in annoyance. I look up at her hair and notice that she has completely dyed it red, just like Veronica asked her to. I don't why it is the first thing that comes to mind but as I stare at her, I can't help but notice how beautiful she is.

"What the hell are you looking at? We need to get out of here!" She whispers.

"Veronica said we have the building to ourselves. She said we could use whatever room we wanted. Besides, the seeking has started already. Do you really want to go out there with those predators searching for us left, right and center? If you want to do that, be my guest but Della and I are staying right here. Also, if this is really Veronica's room, no one will look for us here. We juts have to hope that she doesn't come up here." I say.

"She wont." Silver snaps.

"How do you know?" I ask her.

"She's going to stay right where she is until the game is over." Silver explains. "We'll all have to assemble there after the two hours are exhausted."

I hear a scream and Della, Silver and I all jump in fear at the sound of a girl screaming. I feel my organs tying themselves up inside me and all I want to do is throw up at how disgusting this entire experience is. My heart breaks for all the girls that are going to get caught but unfortunately, there is nothing I can do for them from where I am. I can't leave this room no matter what.

"She's still going to make us assemble in front of her after most of the girls will have to go through what I just heard??" I ask in disbelief. Silver chuckles.

"In case you have not noticed, Veronica does not care. We're all just tools to her." She says.

"I'm not a tool." I say to her.

"You believe that? Then I guess this place hasn't broken you yet." She scoffs and folds her arms across her chest.

"Don't touch anything!" Silver scolds as Della almost picks something up from Veronica's table.

"Why? We could find some useful information." Della argues.

"Information about what?" Silver asks, her voice impatient.

"What do I know? Anything I can use to get out of here." 

Silver groans in anger and stomps towards Della. She grabs her hand and leads her away from Veronica's things.

"There is no way out of here you stupid girl! Plus if you touch anything, she will notice it. Do you have a death wish?" Silver snaps. I massage my forehead with my fingers. I think I'm going to have a headache. She lets go of Della with a push and clicks her tongue annoyingly. Della ends up at my side and shoots Silver a nasty look.

"Why do you hate me so much?" I ask Silver in an attempt to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Excuse me?" She asks.

"I said why do you hate me so much? You've been at my neck since the moment I came to this place. Why?" I ask her again.

"If you think I hate you so much, then why did you help me Why did you not just leave me out there to my impending doom?" She asks with a smirk.

"You don't have to be like that, you know?" I say with an angry look on my face as I walk towards her. "Not everything is an attack. I just want to know why you automatically decided that we were enemies the moment you saw me when you and I are on the same boat? Is it because you think Veronica is giving me special treatment? Because I assure you, she isn't. She hates me just as much as she hates the rest of you. She doesn't care about me. So why?"

"I don't know. I suppose I just felt threatened." Silver shrugs and then slips to the floor. She crosses her legs and leans against the wall, letting out a frustrated sigh.

"How old were you when you were brought here?" I ask her. She snaps her head towards Della and I as we seat crossed leg beside her.

"If we're going to be stuck here together for two hours, we might as well make conversation, right?" I shrug and offer Silver a kind smile. The way her eyes widen in something that looks a bit like disbelief makes me feel sad for her She has probably never seen a genuine smile since she came to this place.

"I was fifteen." She says with an empty look in her eyes. I can't help the small gasp that escapes my lips. "That was eight years ago."

"You've been in this place for eight years?" I say, my voice shaking in horror. That would make Silver twenty-three.

"Yes, and it doesn't get better. You think after sometime you'll get used to it, btu you never do. You just learn to ignore the pain until one day, you come to terms with it." She scoffs again. "Pathetic isn't it?"

A part of me can understand why she's so cruel to me. Her humanity has been taken away from her with every second spend in this place. I feel sorry for her. As I look at her, I imagine a fifteen year old Silver in her place, taken from the life that she had and brought to a place like this.

"Do you know what they do to the girls here when they have served their time?" Silver asks, her voice distant. It's rhetoric question which tells me she's getting ready to tell a story. Della and I hut up and listen.

"They find replacements." Silver says.

"Girls are taken from their homes at a young age, typically fifteen to eighteen and they are trained to forget what their lives were like before they came here. They break us and it works. When we start getting too old, say the age of twenty four, they sell us. Those of us who no one buys, they kill." 

"What?" I scream in a whisper. Silver laughs.

"Yeah, they hold this auction and everything. They dress you up, feed you and prepare you for the man who's going to want to buy you. If you're not bought, then they conclude that no one wants you and sine you're too old to continue being an erotica girl, they just kill you off."

"I turn twenty-four in a few months and I heard Veronica say one time that you're twenty-four too so I felt threatened. I would rather get sold than stay in this place and your presence reduces my chances. Especially when everyone won't stop talking about how pretty you are." She scoffs. 

Horror. Pure horror and dread fill my veins.

"Most of us, the girls who have been here for a long time, turn twenty-four soon. We're all going to be at the auction, including you."

She looks at me from head to toe. "Veronica doesn't usually bring in people from your age. You must have pissed someone off huh?" She smirks at me.

"The man who sent me here was suppose to be my husband." I state.

"Pity." Silver says. Della just stares and watches us in horror. I do not know how to comfort her.

"Who do we get sold to?" I ask.

"The most vile, evil and dangerous men in the world. Men who want a submissive toy or wife. Trust me, the world doesn't run out of weirdos ever. You might think it's weird, stupid even for anyone to want to have a wife he bought from a trafficking organization through auctioning, but you have no idea the kind of kinks and weird fetiches people have. This is just one of them. After breaking us in this place for as long as they can, when we're finally sold off, we don't even want to fight anymore. All that has been instilled in us is that we have a master we must serve." Silver continues and I don't want to hear anymore but I know I have to. I have to know how this place functions.

"It's a bit confusing, even to me who has been here for eight years. There are many other things erotica does. Sometimes it is minors they auction of. It changes from time to time. I just want to get out of here and I don't want anyone to ruin my chances, not you, not anyone!"

That dark look on her eyes come back and I shiver at how she can switch from warm to cold in a second.

"What happens when you get old? Surely these people don't think we can stay young forever."

"What do you think happens?" Silver laughs at me as if I'm stupid. "They'll just recycle us. They'll dispose of us in the way they know best. Kill us and bury us somewhere when they tire of us. The world will never run out of new girls they can train. Like I said, we're all just tools to them. Don't try to understand it. Just accept it and do as you're told. You can only be alive for as long as they let you."

"I will never accept this. Never." I say strongly.

"Then you're going to get yourself killed, Angel."

There is an uncomfortable silence in the room now, and I want to break it before Silver decide that I am her fated nemesis again. I take a deep breath and try to bottle up all the horrors she just dumped at me.

"What do you say we call a truce? Help each other out." My voice comes out soft and pleading. She contemplates as she stares at me, her brows raised up and her lips curved in a frown.

"And how could you possibly help me?" She asks.

"Well, I just helped you now, didn't I?" I say gesturing to the room we're currently hiding in. She blinks, stares at me for a few seconds more, and then sighs as she relaxes her shoulders.

"Fine." She finally says. "A truce."